


victory, a mothers grief

by sapoeysap



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers Ninja Storm
Genre: Bandora's Box Ficathon 2019, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-25 00:09:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21108263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapoeysap/pseuds/sapoeysap
Summary: marah is all clumsy, kapri is all harsh words.





	victory, a mothers grief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [terrierlee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/terrierlee/gifts).

> i feel like a cheat picking the ninja storm villainesses, but its my favourite season. all i knew is i wanted to have marah and kapri burn something down. this happened. 
> 
> Fun fact: the villians wiki has marah and kapri's crimes listed as 'mayhem'

Marah's nine when she burns the house down for the first time.

The first time is the imperative here, because she's twelve and supposedly older and wiser when she burns the new house down.

Kapri laughs, both times, that wicked cackle of hers. Like Marah's the biggest fool in the world. She was making potions, so what if potions aren't real. Maybe mixing oil with live flames wasn't her best idea.

There mum stares them down, patient eyes. She's beautiful, and weary that her perfect daughters are turning to the dark side. She'd born them without a father and hoped that they would take after their uncles. And then one Uncle turned evil, rotten to the core and the other spent days teaching, pure and good of heart. She was the neutral ground and her in the ruins of her burnt down house she realised she had bred chaos.

The doctor had said 'Oh your having twins' like it was an excitable thing, curse family genetics and a predilection for triplets and the like. One had soft blonde hair and one had reddish curls, they both had bright blue eyes. She loved them from the moment they existed.

The redhead she named Marah, a name of the warrior that loved the earth from folklore of long ago. The blonde she named Kapri, the name of a serpent creature that had accompanied said warrior. Maybe that was her first mistake as a mother. To imply that one of the twins was in more regard than the other.

A house filled with houses, dollhouses, houses for the dolls and mini houses for the girls, spoilt rotten in good nature.

Her brother, Kiya, the evil one, had visited when the girls were very young. Given them lush toys and tiny robot mechas. She banished him when she realized how evil he had become, how he went by Lothor now. Lothor sent cards and candy every year on their birthday none the less.

Her other brother, Kaoi and his wife, Miko came and visited often. She hoped there presence would give the young girls a hopeful future. They brought scrolls and told stories of folklore and ninja training. Marah would spend hours practicing her ninja moves, Kapri showing her up with ease and lack of practice every time.

Miko would sit patiently, her belly growing large, Kapri's hands resting and feeling the child kick. While Marah would throw tea parties. With deformed dolls created from multiple parts, all chopped up limbs and raggedly stitched clothing. It hurt her, as a mother, to explain why this bouncing boy all dark hair in Kaoi's arms, was their cousin. Cam. It hurt, when they begged to know where Miko was, but Miko was no more.

Maybe that's when it started.

The dolls became more deformed, uglier, angry marks drawn on in felt tip. Angry marks drawn everywhere in felt tip. White walls defaced with scribbled black holes. She has no one to turn to, Koai is too far gone in his own grief, raising a child without a mother and without the ninja ways he is so ingrained in. Kiy-Lothor is unreachable, far off in space in his own madness.

She watches her daughters consumed in an innocent darkness. Marah, kills a bumblebee, say's it was an accident, but her daughter is clutching a magnifying glass and the sun rays are bouncing around her.

Kapri is somehow worse, all venomous words and moody looks. Somehow this is worse than Marah's clumsy violent tendencies. Because Kapri's words lay down a false comfort, and then strike you like a bear trap. Hours and days later backhanded compliments weigh heavy.

When they were born, they were inseparable. And now she looks at her teenage daughters, squabbling as they move boxes into their third house in seven years, and she doesn't know who they are anymore. They are so far removed from what she wanted them to be. What she had hoped and dreamed they could achieve. They don't even hug her anymore, and that stings. Surely contact would be good, but they turn her away.

She's driving back home, from a stressful work meeting, the day sitting heavily on her. When a truck blindsides the car. It's a miracle she comes away alive, her family could do without more of that sort of trauma. But it’s a heavy toll on her body. And when she comes into the hospital, her daughters looking at her with rare tears in their eyes, she says the wrong brothers name.

'Go to Kiya, he will care for you'

Her daughters, who she has spent her whole life caring for and guarding over. Send her postcards, it’s the most proper contact she's gotten ever for a long time from them. And in a twisted way, she starts to become proud of the mischief they get up to.

A polaroid attached, of Kapri with freshly dyed pink hair, and Marah's hand covered in pink dye smudges.

The postcard reads 'Stained Uncle's bathroom. Worth it though'

The next postcard has a polaroid too, Marah's reddish hair dyed black. There's Lothor in the background captured mid rage. Kapri’s thumb blocking half of the picture frame

Postcards come from all over the galaxy, but at least there exploring. The best ones come from Earth though, knowing her girls are planet side is nice.

'Greetings from Stone Canyon', the flipside say's

_Hi mum, _

_today we totally aced mini golf. and ruined a beach party. so fetch. _

_love ya_

_m & k_

'Mariner Bay, home of the Lightspeed Rangers' comes a cheesy postcard. The picture of the rangers on the front are scribbled out in red and pink felt tip.

_power rangers more like lousy rangers._

_we went to the aquarium! uncle wouldn't let us adopt a fish. but we are gonna sneak out and get one for the ship anyways. keep it a secret. _

_hope you’re feeling better_

_k & m _

Another polaroid attached to a postcard, this time with a picture of Marah and Kapri aside a giant fish tank, squeezed into a corner of what is clearly their shared room on the spaceship. All bright garish colours and chaotic energy. The multi coloured fish tank with its coral and ugly houses match the decor really. She would write them back 'take care of the fish' but they leave no return address. Which is okay. At least their bothering to contact her at all.

A postcard comes, with burnt edges and in two different pens both in Kapri's distinct handwriting.

_You'd be proud of how well we've kept the fish, we named one after you and after cam and after uncle and aunt Miko. They’re doing really well; we think Uncle likes them. _

Reads the first part, over the top in darker ink

_marah might have started a small fire but it’s all okay now promise!!_

* * *

She hears it on the news, a mysterious new power rangers team has cropped up right here in Blue Bay Harbour. And when the colourful explosive footage plays out on her TV she just knows her daughters are somehow caught up in it all. Confirmed only moments later when her brothers face appears on the screen all malicious and masked.

The postcards don't come for a long time. Marah and Kapri's exploits are instead broadcast live into her living room.

* * *

It's a picture of Blue Bay Harbour, the picturesque sea in the background and the forested hills off to the side. On the back, attached, is a picture of her two girls beaming in their ninja wind academy uniforms, next to their cousin. Cam looks all worry lines, but his smile isn't forced in a way it used to be.

It's handed to her physically, by a hand with chipped pink nail varnish. Two daughters in her doorway, bare faced and natural hair.

Only takes five weeks for Marah to accidentally burn the house down again.

**Author's Note:**

> the problem with picking two related characters is you would have to pick a perspective, so i chose to go from a neutral perspective. yeah i made up a character to do so. but it was for the narrative. i am pretty sure the show never explicitly states anything about their parentage or age gap so i felt it was reasonable they could be non-identical twins. 
> 
> title comes from screaming females -[triumph](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbWdB0-C5nU)


End file.
